


let the only sound be the overflow

by detentionlevel



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: M/M, Washington Capitals, mer-person au of sorts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-10
Updated: 2017-01-10
Packaged: 2018-09-16 13:41:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9274553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/detentionlevel/pseuds/detentionlevel
Summary: Sometimes, secrets are too hard to keep anymore. Or: Nicklas Backstrom finds out the hard way that being a fish out of water is a bad idea.





	

He sits at the side of his small above-ground pool in DC sometimes, watches the sun set, the oncoming night moonless. It's nicest when he can do this alone, solitary, without having to worry about running around keeping his own secret. 

This is August, height of summer in DC, and Nicklas Backstrom wipes away the last salty droplet of sweat from forehead before sliding into the pool feet first. He is naked, and as he looks up at the sky from beneath the surface, the gold-orange disc of the sun dips below the horizon, and he feels himself begin to change.

\---

It's during this one day a month, every month during the new moon, that Nicklas finds himself reflecting. He has to, has to think back to his old life; it keeps him from going insane, keeps him from spilling his secrets to everyone he knows in fits of anger. Nicklas knows he has no right to complain or regret, no right to be anything but grateful to the parents who gave him this chance. 

He kicks powerfully around the bottom of the pool as his legs begin to fuse together, his skin morphing from soft, pink and smooth to something firmer, something harder. His hide toughens, discolors; he is steel-grey from the chest down, skin tough and sandpapery with a thick layer of fat beneath. In this form he is longer, invincible; nothing in sea or on land can harm him. His people are the rulers of the Northern ocean, powerful beings deemed demons by the seafaring humans that have encountered them. They are tough enough to endure winters beneath thick, iceberg-choked seas, and Nicklas used to swim up the coast of the mainland, find ice to lay under and bask in the sun's few dim rays on either side of the winter solstice. It was during one of these trips that he discovered skates and sticks, the black rubber discs banging into makeshift goals, the shouts and cheers of little children as they pushed each other about the ice.

It was then that Nicklas began to feel trapped, restrained by the very ice and sea that kept his people safe and free, held back by his inablility to breathe the crisp ocean air and glide around above the ice on blades that flashed bits of sunlight into his eyes, watching sadly from below.

\----

 _So you don't forget, Lars Nicklas_ , he can practically feel his father rumble, as he curls up to sleep in the soft, greying light of dusk, skin scratching against the slick-smooth of the pool's artificial liner. _So you don't forget_. He knows why he has to turn back, once a month, but that doesn't mean his life is any easier for it. He remembers the first time he transformed into his new body, this pudgy-soft gift from his father, benevolent and sad; remembers muscles fairly defined by human standards but still smoother and rounder than his sea-self, legs so new he could hardly walk. He remembers strapping on skates for the first time, remembers practically dancing across the ice - the perfect combination of sea-dreams and sea-power, hockey pads an added edge of feigned invincibility. And then he came to DC, high hopes and love of his gameswelling in his chest, anticipation masking his fear of this unknown land.

He made it through training camps to preseason and suddenly it was happening; his first real, actual season in the NHL. But he still had to change back once a month, every new moon, and hiding it in this new land was practically impossible at first.

He's figured out something of a technique to it at this point, and he's been lucky; in his short career, there have only been a few games on nights when he's been incapacitated. More often than not, he spends nights of the new moon in the comfort of his own home, carving a hole in the ice of his pool during the winter, and those are the best times, the home-times, when it's so cold in the water he can practically hear the sea-songs of his people, the mournful dirges of whales and the sparkle of the northern lights when he takes a breath to surface. 

There are other nights, too, when he doesn't have to change, nights when the team is on the road in places like Boston and Florida, Vancouver and San Jose, nights when he wanders down to the beach by himself and walks, delicate pink feet crunching over broken shells and coarse sand. Sometimes when he wants company he'll convince Alex and Mike or Brooks or even Sasha to come with him, cavorting across the expanses with beers in their hands, splashing in the water like children. It makes him smile, watching his friends dabble in the shallowest bits of the expanse he used to call home. It's times like these that are even harder than when he's angry; times like these are the loneliest, when he wishes so much that he could tell them all, show them who he used to be. 

He likes exploring these oceans during the new moon, as well; in road cities by the sea it's never a problem to slip away on an off day, claiming he's visiting friends or just that he's tired, wants to get some rest in early before the game the next day. They're in Anaheim one day, and just as he always does, Nicklas slips away to a quiet beach, wanders into the ocean, discards his swim trunks and sinks beneath the waves just as the sun peeks beneath the horizon, leaving behind a streaking green flash just as Nicklas feels himself begin to change. He smiles and gives himself over to it; it's one of those nights he feels adventurous, like maybe he'll see how far out to sea he can swim before he gets exhausted and has to turn back to sleep a little. The Pacific tastes different than his home-sea, and tonight that's okay. Before the night is over, his heart is soaring; he's certain he heard the songs of his own kind, or something close to what he is; the songs of his pacific kin are not in any language he can understand, but they're composed with universally beautiful, joyful notes, and that is something he can definitely comprehend - the same way he can read Alex when he chatters away in Russian at Sasha, whether he's happy or angry or sad; the words don't matter so much, Russian or otherwise. 

He always returns to the team as soon as the sun comes up, and this is the part of it he prefers on the east coast, as beautiful as the sunsets out west are. It's Florida that he loves for this; water warm as Mike's hot tub back home. He basks in it, never swims too far, and occasionally almost gets caught; but there are millions of abandoned sand bars south of the mainland that he can hold his breath and clamber up onto, rolling around awkwardly in the dry, warm sand before he needs to breathe water again. 

\-----

It's the inland away arenas that give him trouble. Oh, Chicago's fine, as infrequently as they go there; he's never had to worry about playing them near a new moon, and same goes for most of the teams in the West. It's Toronto and Ottawa that are difficult; certainly there is freshwater, but lake water is hard to breathe, and he can't abide sleeping in running water; it's dangerous, he could drift somewhere, and that's a risk he's unwilling to take. This has happened to him twice, now, in all of his three seasons; twice that he's been forced to fill his hotel room bathtub with water and curl up sighing, door double-padlocked so Alex can't just make a duplicate of his key and walk in on him. It's these nights and the accompanying mornings where he wakes up stiff and sore that he hates more than anything.

When he's not worrying about the phases of the moon, when it's smack in the middle of the lunar month and he can cut loose like he's a normal human - those are the nights he loves the most, off-nights spent with Alex and Sasha and Mike and Brooks and the guys. Sometimes it's just he and Alex after a game, Alex who is gung-ho madness and insanity on the ice, a tasmanian-devil level of energy that none of them can imagine reaching, who turns into a ball of nerves when he asks Nicklas if he'll come driving after the game. He visibly relaxes when Nicolas says yes; it strikes Nicklas as odd, and he can never quite put a finger on why. 

They drive over the river onto 395 late at night when no one's around and Alex can drive fast, laughing over the pounding bassline of the music thumping on the stereo. When it's warm they drive around in his convertible with the top down, and Nicklas closes his eyes and smiles, leans towards the window to feel the air rushing over his skin. His hair blows around differently in air than in water, he notes with interest, and he opens his eyes, giggling as the wind smacks full-force into his face, making his eyes water and his lungs gasp for breath.

He's aware enough to notice Alex glancing at him out of the corner of his eye, protective despite the fact that he's the reason for any impending danger Nicklas might be in. He ignores it though, choosing to ignore Alex in favor of simply wrapping the content feeling around himself like a blanket. 

The spring air tastes of warmer weather and playoffs to come.

\-------

It's Phoenix, the first time he really gets caught in a compromising situation; Phoenix with its dusty air and oppressive sun, and Nicklas knows, he knows the dry heat doesn't affect him any more than any other human in this form, but he still hates it more than anything, would swap it in an instant for the swamplike warmth of Washington or, ideally, the frigid climes of New England or the Upper Midwest. It makes him itch, and it doesn't help that his skin is already crawling.

He knows the new moon is coming, tomorrow; knows that he'll have to slip away during the day to be sure he can find a place to sleep, that this is the expensive Glendale hotel, and the team won't abide by his having his own room. Not tonight. Tonight he shares with Mike, and he has to figure out a way to slip away.

He knows all these things and does nothing about them, and he knows it'll bite him in the ass later. He knows. But despite all this, despite everything he's been warned about, everything he's aware of, he goes out anyways. They won, after all, they won, Alex cajoles, his eyes twinkling with a little something more than mischief.

Nicklas is pretty sure he's supposed to be the siren here, the one with the fish tail and the pretty hair (maybe minus the infinite appeal), but instead it's Alex's eyes and grin that inexplicably draw him in, and before he knows it he's sitting at a bar near the arena in flipflops and shorts, feeling everything within him steadily drying out.

"Shots, Nicklas, you do shots with us, come on!" Alex shouts, and there are Brooks and Mike, smiling all wobbly at him, so hilarious that he chortles to himself, unable to refuse. They drink strong shots of whiskey and vodka, dancing until the wee hours of the morning, stumbling back to bed only after daylight has begun to drag its way over the mountains to the east, painting the desert in odd shades of pink and blue. Nicklas watches it for a few minutes out their hotel room window, Mike standing beside him quietly, before nudging him with one shoulder and yawning until Nicklas is sure his face will split, smacking his lips and tossing himself into bed.

"C'mon, let's sleep, we got one more day off tomorrow and I wanna do stuff tomorrow night," Mike mumbles, and it's true, Nicklas remembers before he too drifts off into oblivion - they have one more day in Phoenix. He has an entire day to figure out where he'll sleep.

Later, he tells himself that it was the alcohol, the combination of desert and hangover and the little group trip into the city to see the sights that has him forgetful. In reality, it's probably the exhaustion, the sheer wear and tear of constantly keeping secrets.

They return to the hotel in the middle of the afternoon, and Nicklas is sated and happy, full of food and sunshine and a short nap, he tells himself, a short nap and then he'll scope out a local motel, rent a room, sleep in the bathtub. A nap will help with the inevitable sleeplessness, he's certain of it.

He wakes with a stabbing pain in his lungs, and Alex sitting on Mike's bed, bouncing up and down with a bottle of water in one hand. Mike is nowhere to be found. 

"Nicklas!" Alex chirps cheerfully, and pauses when Nicklas opens his eyes, squints, gasps for breath, looks out the window.

Dusk.

_It's happening, oh god, it's happening in front of Alex and Nicklas has no where to go, will suffocate, no time to fill the tub and he can't reach the ocean or a pool -_

\- the POOL!

"Alex," he rasps. "Help, help me get downstairs to the pool, please." Alex's eyes widen as Nicklas clutches at his throat, as the pupils of his eyes expand and contract rapidly, dizzyingly fast.

"You...the pool? Nicklas, maybe we should go to hospital, you lookawful..."

"Need...water, Alex, need water, please..." Nicky pleads, bending double as wracking pains shoot through his gut. He's never transitioned on land before, water always acting as a happy medium to float otherwise-heavy limbs. He feels his toes begin to fuse together, bones cracking painfully, and he knows he won't be able to walk for much longer. Nicklas forces himself to his feet, stumbling as he reaches for the doorknob and crashing full-on into the wall, moaning as another wave of pain temporarily paralyzes him. Alex gasps, moves close to cradle him, and Nicklas cannot believe how piss-poor his own timing is as Alex murmurs things into his ear as he shakes.

"Water," he chokes out, the last thing he can manage before his vocal cords rearrange to make room for gills, throat stiffening and hardening, skin beginning to grey as the last bits of sunlight fade from the room.

"Nicky!" Alex gasps in disbelief as his eyes bulge. Nicklas can't breathe, reaches up for the doorknob and pulls himself upright, staggers out the door, and finally, finally, Alex figures out how to take charge. He raps hard on the door to the right of Nicklas', and Brooks and Mike emerge, tousled heads and all - "Whoa, what the fuck? What is this, Alex?"

 

Alex barks out orders. 

"Don't ask questions. Gotta move quick. Mike, go pay the desk clerk to open pool all night. Make sure no one can get in but we four, no one,you hear? Brooks, need you to make sure coast is clear to pool. Nicky needs water, needs to get in the pool, will make him explain later," he snaps, and Nicklas grins bleakly, the smile fading when Alex momentarily boggles at his sharpened teeth. He's a good captain, past all his bravado and stupidity, and Mike and Brooks jump to it, dashing down the hallway to carry out the captain's orders.

"You will explain this later," Alex murmurs against Nicklas' jaw before gathering Nicklas in his arms. Nicklas nods, spots swimming in his vision as he gasps in one more breath of air, gills beginning to protrude from the sides of his neck.

It's another three minutes before they reach the pool, the warm, chlorinated air arousing Nicklas from his oxygen-deprived state. He flails a little, squirms in Alex's arms like a perturbed cat, and Alex holds him tighter, carries him to the deep end before loosing his grip. Nicklas is fairly certain he smacks Alex in the face with a foot-fin in his desperation to slide into the water, but it doesn't matter - clean, filtered water slides through his gills like the smoothest vodka he's ever tasted.

The oxygen and the warmth speed the process, and even though the pool is barely lit, he knows Alex can see, watches his shimmery outline clap hands to his mouth and sink to his knees as Nicklas sheds his pants, his legs fuse back into a powerful silver fin, and he kicks his way around the pool in relief, stretching muscles that haven't been used in weeks.

He pops to the surface after taking several deep, cleansing breaths - the water doesn't taste great, but it's enough - to stare at Alex, alien-bright eyes and slightly-flattened face, silver-scaled skin and broad chest, all traces of softness gone from his body. Alex is still kneeling, Brooks and Mike standing behind him similarly slackjawed, and Alex is the first to speak, of course.

 _"Morskoi Tsar,"_ he murmurs, a look of nervous shock on his face, and Nicklas shakes his head, smiling quietly to himself. Brooks and Mike back away a step when Nicklas ducks under, takes a breath, and pushes himself up close to Alex. The Russian is shaking, not-quite visibly to a human eye, but to Nicklas' finely-tuned predator's eyes, slitted and all, Alex's carefully controlled quivering is endearing, obvious. He smiles, backs away, and slides back underwater, watches Alex stand, trail fingers in the water, crook one back and forth as if asking Nicklas to come back.

He's endearing, their Captain, with his thoughts and nerves. Nicklas is no _Morskoi Tsar_ , no Water-King, with swans for sisters; his girl-cousins all had the same sharp teeth and sleek body he has. He wants to draw Alex to him (but maybe he is a siren, after all?), comfort him, explain that he's not a monster - just the only offspring of a quiet, benevolent sea-spirit who always wanted his son to have what he wanted - even if that desire involved giving his son legs to skate furious-fast over panes of frozen water, to smash into other humans, his sea-shape abandoned for all but one night every month. 

He kick-turns to the other end of the pool, the shallow end, considers just curling up to sleep and explaining things to Alex in the morning, when he hears the mumble of voices, pops up to watch Brooks and Mike pad out of the pool area quietly. He sinks into the water so only his eyes and the top of his head protrude, and he can practically see the emotions running rampant on Alex's face.

He doesn't expect Alex to kick his pants off and shuck his shirt and leap into the pool, but when has Alex ever done anything expected?

It's his instinct to shy away from physical contact when he's in sea-form. He's been alone in this for years, now, five at least since he's touched anyone with fingers tipped in claws instead of blunted, chewed fingernails. But he stands firm, watching Alex warily as he approaches. He's longer than Alex is tall by several feet. Alex reaches down, runs fingers through Nicklas' still-blond, still-wavy hair, and Nicklas can feelhim settle, can feel the light touch anchoring Alex. He sighs, sinks back underwater so that he's stretched full-out in the shallow end on his back, watching Alex for a reaction.

Alex doesn't disappoint.

He murmurs in Russian, reaches down hesitantly, and it's beautiful the way his cautious fingertips stick in the water tension at the surface, break through like pushing through a barrier. His hand is infinitely warm against Nicklas' face, and Nicklas wishes he could speak, wishes he could tell Alex that as soon as tomorrow morning comes, he plans to act on all the urges he's had for months now - but tomorrow morning will come, and now is just for showing Alex everything, for trying to express gratitude that Alex helped him in his moment of stupidity.

Nicklas moves slowly, like a child trying to avoid startling a bird, and rests a cold hand against Alex's arm. Alex smiles, rests a hand over Nicklas', and Nicklas can't stand it anymore - he pushes himself up, takes a deep breath, and pushes his torso up out of the water to wrap Alex in a tight hug. Alex makes a small noise of surprise before settling his arms around Nicklas' bulky frame, and they stay like that for a moment, before Nicklas has to breathe again. He deigns to drop an attempted kiss to Alex's shoulder as he slides away - scales sloughing skin off Alex's chest, and Nicklas winces at the tiny drops of blood that rise to the surface of the Russian's skin. But Alex simply brushes them away with a smile, pulls Nicklas up, and presses his lips chastely against his cheek, murmuring "Oh, Nika, I wish you could speak to me."

Nicklas shudders as the sound waves of Alex's voice wash over his face, before he ducks down to breathe again; they feel beautiful against his skin. Alex backs off a little, leaning against the side of the pool as Nicklas kicks around into the deep end, stretching and thinking, trying to sort this all out in his mind; his secret, no longer a secret, and the warmth of Alex's body pressed against his cold skin. The thought it it makes him shudder, drift back closer to the other man. He flips onto his back, stretching out on the bottom of the shallow end.

On a whim he reaches out, rests his hand against Alex's leg, and Alex jumps a little before kneeling in the shallow end, water up to his neck. Nicklas holds perfectly stock-still, eyes wide as Alex reaches down, strokes a hand across his chest, tracing the outline of ribs and sternum, dragging his fingertips back up along the rough edges of Nicklas's scales. Nicklas sighs, then, a little pod of bubbles escaping his lips, and Alex chuckles, touching him again.

Before long he's curled entirely around Alex, little rumbly noises all he can manage as Alex's fingers explore the flat planes of his shoulders, the fins at his elbows, the curve of his head, tangling in his wavy hair. He rests his cheek against Alex's stomach, listening to the quiet rumbling sounds it emits.

Nicklas isn't sure how much time passes; he just knows that he's practically asleep when Alex disentangles himself, hesitates for a moment. Nicklas blinks his eyes, lifts himself out of the water to press cold lips against the underside of Alex's jaw, smiling as he breaks into goosebumps. He pantomimes sleep and Alex nods, comprehending, pulling himself out of the pool, and Nicklas watches, longing, wishing he could follow.

It's only one night, he tells himself. One night - a few hours, really - and he can explain everything.

It's a long night. 

He's out of the pool as soon as the sun's up, and it's a strange reversal of roles. Alex has left him some clothes, and he pulls them on, grateful. The pre-dawn light filtering through the pool room windows is as grey as his sea-skin; he spends a moment gazing out at the jagged silhouetted mountains before he wanders to the front desk, sweet-talking a key to Alex's room out of the pretty front-desk attendant. 

When Alex pulls open the door, Nicklas braces himself for anger, hurt, confusion, fear; what he doesn’t expect, though, is Alex pulling him into a hug.  
“Nicklas,” Alex murmurs against his hair, lips brushing against his ear, warm and careful. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

He can practically feel the sadness radiating off Alex; it’s pain and regret and Nicklas understands both of those far too well. Instead of responding he sighs, turns his face into Alex’s chest, presses his nose against Alex’s sternum.

“You gonna be okay?” Alex asks quietly, so unlike him. Nicklas nods; he shakes a little, exhausted from a sleepless night worrying about talking to his teammates who saw his sea-form.

Alex takes him to bed, and with the desert sun rising through the east-facing windows, they drowse, curled in facing each other like commas; Alex kisses him awake after a while, and Nicklas smiles, presses his lips and tongue soft and pink against Alex’s, marvelling at the softness of their human forms.

Slowly, Alex coaxes Nicklas’ story out of him; his eyes widen when Nicklas tells him of walking on land for the first time, of skating, of his father’s melancholy, proud face the moment Nicklas reached down to say goodbye. He tells Alex of swimming in western oceans, of curling up in his pool at home - all the tales he’s lived and could never tell anyone.

They beat the Coyotes that night, and Nicklas’ body feels like raw power as he leaps into Alex’s arms, Mike screaming into his face, Michal scooting over to hug them all with his cumbersome goalie pads. He loves this, and he’s not alone in any of it anymore.

\------

The first time Alex fucks him is, of course, in the dying hours of the next new moon, because Alex is nothing if he isn’t taking every chance he can.

It's desperate and hurried, and Alex clings to him like he's leaving, digs bruises into Nicklas' hips as he pushes in fast-fast-fast, biting down on Nicklas' shoulder as he comes; Nicklas cries out, long and keening, as he strokes himself through his own orgasm, grumbling at Alex about his newly-cleaned sheets. Alex just laughs at him.

They finish before the sun begins to set; it’s early March, and there’s still a thin crust of ice in his pool, the last rimey bits belying how cold the water still is. Nicklas gets up stiffly, nodding to Alex; it’s time. They go outside to sit on the deck, Alex wrapped in a blanket, Nicklas in nothing at all; Alex dips a toe in, shudders at how cold the water is.

“Thought you were Russian?” Nicklas teases, and Alex raises an eyebrow.

“There’s a reason all our clothes is so warm. We’re not like crazy Swedish mermaid people, running around naked in dead of winter,” Alex snipes, ogling him, and Nicklas shoves him with a toe.

“We’re not _mermaids,_ Alex.”

“Says you.” A cheeky grin provokes an eyeroll and a huff and this is who they are, Nicklas marvels.

He feels his teeth begin to sharpen, and his skin shudders as the sun begins to cast a dying orange glow over the backyard; Alex reaches over to light the brazier that lives on Nicklas’ deck, settling himself in for the evening; Nicklas lowers himself into the pool.

The cold water accelerates the process, as always, but this time, instead of running away, Nicklas lets Alex see the whole thing, smiles sharply as Alex’s eyes widen at the process. He breathes a deep lungful of oxygen from the fresh, cold water, and pushes himself up to lean on the deck.

“You’re almost cute like this, Nika,” Alex teases, and Nicklas rolls his eyes yet again, baring his teeth in a sarcastic grin. Alex doesn’t shy away at all, just nudges him back with one foot, curling his blanket around himself a little tighter. He drops a kiss to the top of Nicklas’ hair, then stands up to go inside; Nicklas’ eyes widen, but Alex waves him off.

“Gonna put real clothes on and get some vodka, and got you some fish at the market today. Didn’t know what you like like this, so I got a lot. I’ll be right back.” Nicklas grins happily, flipping back into the pool. 

The sun is completely gone now, but Nicklas is not alone.

Nicklas is home.

**Author's Note:**

> SO. STORY. Back nine hundred years ago there was a kink meme, and on that kink meme in approximately april of 2010, this was prompted:
> 
> "Mermaid AU. Nicklas Backstrom spent his childhood wanting to play atop the ice instead of watching while trapped underneath. He loves it, but sometimes the stress of secret-keeping makes him sea-- er, homesick. And that's why one of his teammates finds him in a hotel pool at 4am, fins and all."
> 
> I proceeded to write like half this fic, and have thought about it from time to time since then. But since Ovi is about to hit 1,000 points, I figured I'd finally finish the damn thing. Hope y'all enjoyed it! A million thank yous to @folignos for betaing! 
> 
> Soundtrack for this fic:
> 
> NIN - 17 Ghosts II  
> Bastille - An Act of Kindness  
> Lights - Flux and Flow  
> Electic President - Insomnia


End file.
